FAFO is just “karma” re-articulated, it implies those who do wrong will receive consequences for their wrongness - it implies the universe is just and that innocent people don’t get punished.
Usually rather than admit that nature is not just, that innocent people get punished and hurt for no reason, people instead try to rationalize ways that victims “deserved” it.
For example, the Buddha taught that with enough loving-kindness in your heart, you can become invulnerable to harm from animals, so when one of his monks died from a snake bite, he claimed the monk must have not had enough love and kindness in his heart for the snake to deserve being bitten.
In reality, sometimes snakes act irrationally and bite people who aren’t messing with them. This can happen because the snake was stressed by an unrelated event, or because of disease or illness (much like a dog can attack because of rabies).
Ultimately karma is not just a lie, it’s a system of gaslighting victims into believing they deserved the bad things that happened to them.
I think that if you get enough people to think that karma exists, then it mostly does. A person will self harm when feeling guilty. The worst people, the people with no guilt and a narcissistic personality, don’t get to see any effects because they don’t think about any harm they do again.
That’s an interesting way to look at it, basically asserting that guilt is a real form of karma. I do think for people who feel guilt, that it can function as a way to “punish” someone for doing something wrong, but I disagree with you that people feel that guilt because they believe in karma.
Nor do I think guilt is the same thing as justice - even in cases where wrong-doing results in guilt. That is, guilt is not always the appropriate or just response to wrong-doing. If a murderer says they feel guilty, we do not think that is sufficient punishment to make up for their crime.
Karma also tends to create complacency and is used to justify the status-quo, it is used to justify why lucky and rich people are lucky and rich, and why unlucky and poor people are unlucky and poor, and why we shouldn’t interfere in those matters. Karma is in a real sense a fairy tale of natural justice that undermines the will to create real justice or fairness through law or society. In that way, I think it actually works against your idea that karma creates guilt which leads to justice. Instead I think karma absolves people of guilt and attempts to make justice the matter of the gods or nature rather than a human project.
Finally, I don’t think guilt is always rational or proportionate - many of us feel very guilty for minor wrongs (like failing to recycle a plastic container) while others feel very little guilt for severe wrongs (like raping an unconscious woman at a party). My point is that guilt is a poor substitute for justice, and it’s not clear that guilt that is felt is always deserved or appropriate. For example, many abuse victims blame themselves or feel guilt for things they never did wrong. The psychology of guilt is not consistent with a natural account of justice like karma tries to provide.
Although I agree with your conclusions, I never said guilt = justice. I agree that people feel guilty all the time and it’s not equal to the crime both ways.
Religions, parents, teachers, etc., use guilt to control. For example, if you’re born with original sin, you’re born in a deficit that you have to make up. You were born as a poor soul and another human has to be the go between in whether you’re forgiven or not. They control your emotional lives.
Karma, I think, was originally a way to get people to do good deeds. Now it seems to be similar to the original sin crap.
IMO, guilt is in our repertoire of feelings so we don’t do evil things when making choices. We tend to self harm when we feel guilty, like become an alcoholic, eat ourselves to the point of unhealthiness, take drugs, put ourselves in risky situations, etc. It’s a self-inflicted karma, not justice.
Justice, to me, is different for each person and has more to do with the choices.
Your claim is that when people believe in karma it becomes real (through guilt). Karma is justice, it’s a claim that justice is natural and will occur without human intervention - and also as an explanatory tool for why some people suffer and others are lucky. Without karma, you have to use human systems of justice because you can’t rely on justice happening naturally. When I say justice, I’m talking about the process by which fairness is maintained through punishment or other resolution of harms done.
It’s self-inflicted karma, so each person decides their own justice. I’m saying that karma is the concept that what you do has a cause and effect, justice is the punishment. I think we’re agreeing, just saying it differently.
I don’t think karma in Eastern traditions is any less victim-blaming, particularly in contexts like Hinduism and Buddhism where it’s used to explain away why poor people are poor, why people who suffer deserve to suffer, etc.
FAFO is just “karma” re-articulated, it implies those who do wrong will receive consequences for their wrongness - it implies the universe is just and that innocent people don’t get punished.
Usually rather than admit that nature is not just, that innocent people get punished and hurt for no reason, people instead try to rationalize ways that victims “deserved” it.
For example, the Buddha taught that with enough loving-kindness in your heart, you can become invulnerable to harm from animals, so when one of his monks died from a snake bite, he claimed the monk must have not had enough love and kindness in his heart for the snake to deserve being bitten.
In reality, sometimes snakes act irrationally and bite people who aren’t messing with them. This can happen because the snake was stressed by an unrelated event, or because of disease or illness (much like a dog can attack because of rabies).
Ultimately karma is not just a lie, it’s a system of gaslighting victims into believing they deserved the bad things that happened to them.
I think that if you get enough people to think that karma exists, then it mostly does. A person will self harm when feeling guilty. The worst people, the people with no guilt and a narcissistic personality, don’t get to see any effects because they don’t think about any harm they do again.
That’s an interesting way to look at it, basically asserting that guilt is a real form of karma. I do think for people who feel guilt, that it can function as a way to “punish” someone for doing something wrong, but I disagree with you that people feel that guilt because they believe in karma.
Nor do I think guilt is the same thing as justice - even in cases where wrong-doing results in guilt. That is, guilt is not always the appropriate or just response to wrong-doing. If a murderer says they feel guilty, we do not think that is sufficient punishment to make up for their crime.
Karma also tends to create complacency and is used to justify the status-quo, it is used to justify why lucky and rich people are lucky and rich, and why unlucky and poor people are unlucky and poor, and why we shouldn’t interfere in those matters. Karma is in a real sense a fairy tale of natural justice that undermines the will to create real justice or fairness through law or society. In that way, I think it actually works against your idea that karma creates guilt which leads to justice. Instead I think karma absolves people of guilt and attempts to make justice the matter of the gods or nature rather than a human project.
Finally, I don’t think guilt is always rational or proportionate - many of us feel very guilty for minor wrongs (like failing to recycle a plastic container) while others feel very little guilt for severe wrongs (like raping an unconscious woman at a party). My point is that guilt is a poor substitute for justice, and it’s not clear that guilt that is felt is always deserved or appropriate. For example, many abuse victims blame themselves or feel guilt for things they never did wrong. The psychology of guilt is not consistent with a natural account of justice like karma tries to provide.
Although I agree with your conclusions, I never said guilt = justice. I agree that people feel guilty all the time and it’s not equal to the crime both ways.
Religions, parents, teachers, etc., use guilt to control. For example, if you’re born with original sin, you’re born in a deficit that you have to make up. You were born as a poor soul and another human has to be the go between in whether you’re forgiven or not. They control your emotional lives.
Karma, I think, was originally a way to get people to do good deeds. Now it seems to be similar to the original sin crap.
IMO, guilt is in our repertoire of feelings so we don’t do evil things when making choices. We tend to self harm when we feel guilty, like become an alcoholic, eat ourselves to the point of unhealthiness, take drugs, put ourselves in risky situations, etc. It’s a self-inflicted karma, not justice.
Justice, to me, is different for each person and has more to do with the choices.
Your claim is that when people believe in karma it becomes real (through guilt). Karma is justice, it’s a claim that justice is natural and will occur without human intervention - and also as an explanatory tool for why some people suffer and others are lucky. Without karma, you have to use human systems of justice because you can’t rely on justice happening naturally. When I say justice, I’m talking about the process by which fairness is maintained through punishment or other resolution of harms done.
It’s self-inflicted karma, so each person decides their own justice. I’m saying that karma is the concept that what you do has a cause and effect, justice is the punishment. I think we’re agreeing, just saying it differently.
I mean Karma is grossly misrepresented in the western world so that comes off as no surprise
I don’t think karma in Eastern traditions is any less victim-blaming, particularly in contexts like Hinduism and Buddhism where it’s used to explain away why poor people are poor, why people who suffer deserve to suffer, etc.